Internet Love
by charchar4lyfe
Summary: Joy accidentally created a male account in Maplestory. What she brushed off as a simple mistake cost her. It didn't seem like a big deal at the time... Winning Story for the 2007 December Maple Wedding Contest


Internet Love

By Cloud

Note: Names have been changed.

There once was a girl who went to a high school, who created a male Nexon account by accident. She didn't notice the error until she started creating her first character. She was too lazy to create another account, so she stayed as a boy in MapleStory.

There wasn't any harm in being a guy., If she did create a girl character, the guys would have been following her around and harassing her like they did to other girls she saw. There was an advantage to being a guy. All she had to do was act like a guy. 'That was all,' she thought.

Many days passed and people didn't notice anything odd. The people around her were awesome and kind to her. They were the best people she ever met online. One day, one of her close friends became suspicious of her. Her friend suddenly asked if she was a girl. She replied with the playful answer of "Yes or No or Maybe So." But that did not satisfy her friend. They became distant and soon, they were strangers. She felt bad for not telling her the truth, and yet if she did, it wouldn't change anything anyway.

After the incident, she created a new character in a different world. There she was very content about everything except her relationship with her friends. She was so distant from the others that her buddy list contained only ten buddies. Those ten buddies were either already in her guild or just inactive. She felt isolated and lonely. She even went through a depression that discouraged her from playing MapleStory. She even wondered why she played this lonely game. She even regretted not creating a new character after she discovered her account was male. But all this was just the beginning of her story.

Nexon finally opened the new world called Bellocan. It was smaller and more compact. She believed it was her chance to make friends, and a whole lot better than before. She was right. She made friends immediately. For the first time, she felt love, loved, and cared about. Later, she made her own guild and invited many friends close to her. Then one day, one of her friends recruited a guy named davedaboss. She didn't really feel comfortable, but her guild was supposed to be open to everyone so she couldn't do anything much.

Time passed by and her guild members grew very close to each other. She even felt close to people she didn't know. It was some kind of revolution in her MapleStory life; close friends, love, and care made her happy to play the game again. She never felt so happy like this before.

She became very close friends with davedaboss, who later was known as David. She often called him brother, and so would he. They laughed and talked about almost everything except the fact that she was a girl. They often hung out together in Free Market and fool around. People often mistook them for real brothers because they were so close together.

One day, her younger sister introduced Joy to her MapleStory boyfriend. Her sister said, "Joy, I know this guy and he seems very nice. He is not like the other guys." She didn't want to let her sister get engaged with a guy from the other side of the world. She prevented her sister from getting too close with that guy. But in the end, she was soft-hearted and allowed her. She warned the sister's boyfriend that if anything went wrong, she would chase him down. The boyfriend was weirded out by her words, but he still took it was a warning. Joy thought, "Brothers usually do this, right?"

After her sister's wedding in MapleStory, Joy felt happy for her sister and her husband. There was a happy picture of them smiling. Happy. Just happy. But was she really happy? No, she thought. Her sister was happy, not her. She felt jealous so she planned to tell her guild that she wasn't a guy but a girl who accidentally made a guy account. If she did, would anyone even care? Would anyone even think of her as a girl after all the times she acted like a guy? The answer was no.

Days passed by after the wedding. She still thought about the idea of revealing her true identity. She kept it secret from the beginning, so why couldn't she keep it until she quit? Maybe she didn't want to be a guy anymore. Maybe she didn't want to be strong and tough like a guy. Maybe she wanted to be loved by a guy.

She often saw girls in the game trying to flirt around with her, which grossed her out. She even felt that someone had a crush on her thinking that she was a guy of course. She couldn't tell that she was a girl in real life because she was afraid. She couldn't tell anyone. She felt puzzled inside.

One day, she found that David had left the guild. She felt mad and sad at the same time. The brotherhood was now shattered into many broken glass pieces. She asked him why he left. His only answer was that he wanted to visit some new guilds and would come back soon. Soon, she repeated. How soon she wanted to ask, but she felt that she was clinging on to him. She stopped herself and began to walk slowly away from him. She was upset. A person who she thought wouldn't leave her side actually had left her. He had left her guild and gone out of her sight. Did she do something wrong? Did she say something to hurt him? She wanted him back where he was before. But he didn't come back. He still talked to her and sometimes called her brother. Once, he whispered to her with his usual attitude, but she couldn't control herself. She felt horrible because she couldn't tell him how she felt or how she was a girl. It would ruin everything: the brotherhood, friendship, and love. Everything she had built for several months would slowly wash away as if washed away by an incoming tide. Sometimes she felt that she had an emotional breakdown and would yell at him for not coming back.

Days passed and she finally asked David to come back to the guild. It seemed that she was a selfish boy for awhile. David probably thought that she was some kind of weirdo, but that was okay. She knew that she was weird enough to herself. He said he would come back to the guild later, but not at the moment. This time, she was patient and waited for him.

The next day, she logged back on and saw the name she longed to see in her guild list. David came back! She began to hang around with him more than before, and she wished that what had happened would never happen again.

On that same day, David asked her something that made her think for many days.

He asked, "Hey Jo, do you believe in Internet love?"

"Internet love?" she asked.

"Yeah, when you fall in love with someone in the Internet." He answered.

"No. It's stupid. For instance, if a girl in the game thought that I was a handsome dude but found out that I'm not, that would mess up many things wouldn't it?" Ha, Internet love. That wasn't what she wanted to say. She wanted to say, "Yes, I do believe in it because I'm in that situation right now with you." She just found out that it might be a crush. She wanted to tell him so badly that she had to hold herself back and think deeply to reply to his question. She eventually had to tell hi, but not yet.

She was still thinking about what David asked. A week had already passed.

"Gosh, this is driving me nuts," thought Joy. "I must be crazy." She saw David log on and invited him to the chat as fast as she could. She began talking to him about this and that, and finally she asked him, "What if I was a girl?" David was silent for a moment before saying, "I don't know. That would be weird. We were like really close like real brothers but if all of a sudden I found out that you are a girl, it would surprise me big time." She hesitated what to type next, but all she could think of was to reveal her identity. "I'm a girl," she said. Then everything seemed to stop. The time and the air seemed to be so still. Nothing was moving, not even her lungs. Maybe she shouldn't have said it. She thought he would react as her other _friend_ had. Then slowly, moving her fingers, she typed, "I'm just joking" and when she was about to press the enter key, she stopped herself. She read, "Wow. That's cool. We are still friends, right?" She trembled and couldn't believe what she read. He actually didn't run away. He still wanted to be friends with her. She was amazed. She thanked him in her heart for everything. She replied with, "Of course we are! We are the _brothers_, right?!" He laughed and asked several questions how she kept the secret and why. She explained everything she could tell him, even her real name and her love wish, which was that she wished for a miracle in her love life. He understood many of her reasons and promised to keep the secret. He was satisfied.

When she went to her school on then following day, she accidentally bumped into a guy. She looked up and he was a little taller than her and had lightly-tanned skin and dark brown eyes. His dark hair was messy but in a good way. His face wasn't unique but anyone could spot that kind of face in a crowd. She noticed she was staring at him too long and said, "Oops sorry." After she said that, he gently smiled and whispered in her ear, "See you in MapleStory, Joy, I would like to talk more about this Internet love." She felt her eyes widen. As he walked away slowly, she smelled his perfume. It was very light, but was sweet and had many components in it. She turned around swiftly, and he was there smiling and waving at her, as if he knew she was going to turn around.

Then suddenly he came back and hugged her so tightly that she couldn't breathe. He told her in a low voice, "Miracles happen. You just need to believe it." With that, he showed her a small, pink plastic ring and he said, "It doesn't cost much but it's a promise ring between you and me. It's a promise to marry me in MapleStory. Would you marry me?" As he finished saying this, he made his ring slide through his fourth finder on his left hand. Then, he gently slid the pink ring on her fourth finger. The scene seemed as if they were actually marrying in the middle of the campus. She touched the pink ring softly and then touched his. The rings had a heart with a gold frame on them. They were very cute and so was his proposal. She gently held her arms around his thin waist and felt his warmth and his heartbeat. He also held her with his arms. They stood there as if time stopped on both of them. Joy finally whispered to Dave, "Miracles do happen."

The End


End file.
